So I started to finally write this proposal up for my trip to the Soundcloud Headquarters next month. It is in no way finished but I wanted the opinion of my Steemit community, especially those from my neighbors in "The Cut". Let me know what you guys think. I have not begun to put the numbers, charts, and other statistics together yet. This is just a general summary so I can begin to work on that. Take it easy on me. I am not a financial guru. I am simply an artist that has a passion for the "struggling artist" and I know how I would want my own music to be received and monetized. This age of cryptocurrency has open the door for new possibilities.
PROPOSAL
This represents the 1st part of my Musicoin/Soundcloud proposal
Soundcloud proposal
Based on Musicoin established (Pay to Play) License platform
Soundcloud received funding from Doughty Hanson & Co, a private British Equity Fund manager company established in 1985.
My proposal with Soundcloud would be to simply integrate a Pay to Play License in conjunction with Musicoin as Musicoin currently has the cryptocurrency infrastructure already established. Soundcloud in conjunction with Musicoin would not need to establish pay to play license with record labels but instead with individual artist’s with respect to their original music.
Soundsloud’s current interface would remain the same except that the “option” to offer Musicoin’s Pay to Play license to their current user base which includes artists could now be utilized. Based on Soundcloud’s growth within the past few years, by implementing a crypto currency to coordinate the Pay to Play reward system, Soundcloud would have the ability to create income aside from subscriptions which is it’s primary means of revenue.
While subscriptions services can greatly benefit Soundcloud’s revenue, artists and music enthusiasts are more apt to subscribe to other music sites that allow users to listen for free and broadcast their respective music for free, without distracting advertisements. Also, currently there is no incentive other than art recognition to be on Soundcloud. Ad-revenue adds digital data weight and convolution to Soundcloud’s interface which poses another drawback for continuous significant growth. By implementing Musicoin, Soundcloud would be utilizing a cryptocurrency that is already established and growing in value. This means that Soundcloud would immediately be able to tap into the cryptocurrency industry’s fast moving growth by allowing for new investors from all over the world. This is perhaps the most persuading information for this partnership. The overall cryptocurrency industry, including Bitcoin and other alcoins has increased from 17,000,000,000 in February to over $650,000,000,000 within the past 10 months alone. I know no other industry in the history of economics to have a growth this substantial.
Because Soundcloud is already an established music platform for new users, more artists would now look outside of sites like Spotify and Apple Music, the current dominant digital music streaming avenues, as their potential music home base. The need for Soundcloud to acquire music license from record labels would be unnecessary at this point as Musicoin/Soundcloud together would become a dominant force in independent artist music distribution. This could have a very significant affect to the record industry in general.
This merger/partnership will also be a tremendously progressive move for the music audio artist independence which is the more relevant reason for my proposal. The record industry is extremely saturated in regards to radio play and streaming services to a bias based music style. This leaves many talented artist and genres out of the picture because they don’t fall into what radio “typically” plays. The Musicoin/Soundcloud partnership could pioneer a new age for all independent artist all over the globe to finally monetize from their work in a fair and translucent way.
Thank you for sharing ♥ following you
Sounds interesting! I like that you have the big picture in mind and the goal to help independent music. I've looked into musiccoin but I'm just not really down with the whole pay to play thing.. Personally I feel like we should strive to find other ways to pay the artists. That's why I like Steem as an example that this might work. Here everyone can read all posts for free. Still, in theory, content gets curated and good artists and "talent scouts" gets rewarded.
This got me thinking though that this could pretty much be achieved with your proposal as well. If I would say upload doubles of every track on Soundcloud with only one using your musiccoin option and link to it from the free one. To let people choose.
What would make me start using this merged platform is probably if they included the option for them to automate this. So that I can upload one track and they make a copy of it. So that everyone can choose to play it the old school way OR the musiccoin way seamlessly. And also they have to show what gets played and tipped a lot to give the incentive for people to sign up for the addition. Personal opinions, hope the trip goes well!
I like the sound of a Pay to Play. I can't lie...BUT....what I've noticed about Musicoin is a lot of the times, my first play is usually paid for by them...If I want to hear more, then yeah It will usually come out of my wallet. But here's part of what I didn't post as the complete proposal....Users will have opportunities to get Musicoins from just listening to free music. Something like 10 tracks will give you 1 free Musicoins. So there's actually now an incentive to stay on the platform. It's really genius what I have put together but it definitely needs some attention from the "big wigs"
Hope you get some more attention then. I will have to look into what I think is the best options soon but I trust that you've got a plan. Good luck!!
Dope. The trip is towards the end of February. I really wish I had some people in "The Cut" coming with me. That would be dope.
Hi there, we are on Musicoin and it is our experience that every play is paid for now by UBI - it does not come out of the listeners wallet. They've integrated full (not 30s) playing within Twitter so that anyone can listen for free and we still get paid. Here's our link in case you fancy some electro/synth :-) Good luck with your proposal. https://musicoin.org/nav/artist/0x9addce5bd6ee2426d451f9e029f1d759654ac97a
The idea is great however a company like Soundcloud would rather have full control than rely on a third party as there are just too many risks.
If this was an avenue they were to consider then they would either buy out someone like musicoin or hire developers to do this themselves.
I have been using both sites for sometime and I am very excited about the future for independent artists with sites that utilise the blockchain but musicoin has long way to go to become a proven technology. At the moment it has a lot of issues in terms of performance and scalability and this would also be a real worry for Soundcloud.
I'm hoping that these performance issues are being worked on behind the scenes and we will see a great improvement soon.
One thing that could happen, if they do get this right, is that a lot of musicians will move over to musicoin from Soundcloud. Who wouldn't want to get paid for every play>?